Vintage radio speaker, can I get it working? 

Awesome video! Im curious to hear more testing to evaluate the ramge of this speaker. A 20-20khz swipe test and some modern music test. Also a more powerful amplifier to see until what volume it holds up without distorting. Fascinating content, please keep it up and thank you for this valious content, it made my day!

I think these were not particularly loud originally. In the 1920s many people listened to radio using headphones, and so it was a considerable step forward to amplify the audio loud enough that several people could listen at once, but my guess is they still had to keep quiet and be attentive!

Great Vid! Subscribed right away

That's pretty impressive, with the vintage driver!

This is so cool! Makes you wonder what time and setting that speaker was last used.

I'll say, stick with the vintage one lol. It looks cool and I like the sounds of it.

Thanks for the video! I'm a collector of a such stuff too. I have a similar radio speaker made in the USSR in the 30's. But my one also is a gramophone soundbox. I mean it can work like yours - as a speaker and it can be used like an ordinary gramophone diaphragm. More than that, it can work in ways at the same time - as an electromagnetic pickup - sound goes from your amplifier's loudspeaker (from radio) and also sound goes from gramophone's horn. Honestly speaking, it sounds poorly, there are almost no high frequencies in it's sound. Almost forgot! It can be used as a cheap microphone if you'll shout it it's diaphragm. It looks like it's a simple gramophone pickup but more heavier and it has two jacks for cord connection on the back side. All these functions of our such soviet device were listed in "Radiofront" magazine from the middle of the 1930's.

These early speakers are meant to be hooked directly up to a 1920s pre-superhetrodyne regenerative type radio. Glasslinger (youtube user) has done a few of them. They aren't very loud either. I'm pretty sure most need a power supply for the electric magnet. The frequency response is probably worse than AM radio. The paper-cone loudspeakers came on the market around the same time (just a bit before) as the first electric records. They pushed these mechanical jobs off the market. Other than switching out the electromagnet in the early loudspeakers for the permanent magnet of the modern one, they are mostly unchanged since. Also, either you have the amp turned up too high, or your matching transformer is way off. The distortion is terrible.

I think if you keep the vintage driver, it is important to match the impedance of the driver to the amplifier. A driver of 3000 ohms was probably intended to be connected to the output tube(s) with no output transformer. (Keep in mind the true impedance would need to be determined with an AC signal, not an ohm meter) This driver will make a very poor match to an 8 ohm output and will result in low volume. If you would like to hear it another way, use a horn driver for a PA speaker, be sure to use a crossover to keep the bass out of the driver.

Interesting. They certainly look better than they sound. Could you 3 d print a case to accomodate a modern speaker?? that could be attached to the horn? I wonder how that would sound? My Mother used to tell me her Dad put a pair of headphones in the mixing bowl when the family wanted to listen to a program together. This would have been late 20’s.

Well in my opinion, if you like sound amplified the natural way which is by a giant horn then you could use that radio. Unlike other speakers, it amplifies sound with machinery like receivers.

i looked closely at 6:40 and noticed that the power LED of the speaker amp was getting very dim. The transformer was pulling a lot of current. I'd say there is definitely stuff that needs to be left in the past. Not only does it draw so much current, but it also sounds dreadful

👍👍👍

Keep it original & go for the vintage driver, preferably using 1920's valves. I''ve done this, but the sound's a bit quaint, due to the imperfect frequency response. Here's an example of the sound I got from a later (balanced armature) high impedance speaker, on a rare early 1930's radio: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ht9qh_kLlZ8.htmlsi=D0jwC2DiKXSYvVgu

I think it would be good to stick with the vintage driver, but fool around with it some more, as the distortion is a bit out of hand.

I think most old vintage speakers are driven by a transformer not Direct but I could be wrong🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

1:44 looks an awful lot like a compression driver. I bet a modern driver (say Pyle PD122) could make that horn scream like hell.

If you want to keep it as close to original as possible, keep the vintage driver.

Hello my friend

Upgrade but continue working with the old driver

I think you should stick to the old one and I wouldn't mind hearing it playing other music to

DC resistance is not the same thing as impedance.

A lot of electronic capital

It's hard to tell how it sounds because I'm listening through your mic, your sound card, youtube compression, my sound card, then my headphones. It's a working piece of vintage tech. Leave well enough alone. Make a new driver that you can attach to the horn.

Stick with the original